Tag Archives | Financial Independence

The Connection between Financial Health and Abundance

By on October 2, 2014 in Abundance, Financial Health

There’s an amazing conversation going on in our world about how to attract and invite abundance into our lives – have you heard about it yet?

Sadly, my experience tells me that most people want amazing amounts of abundance in their lives, yet they are not in the place financially speaking to powerfully attract abundance in the most optimal way.

What I see is this – there’s a financial energy spectrum that spans from scarcity, to sufficiency (as the mid-point of the spectrum), to abundance. At the scarcity point of the continuum, the financial energy is hectic and chaotic which tends to come from feelings of “not enough,” people feeling overwhelmed by money, and a general sense of disorganization when it comes to finances. At the sufficiency point, the energy is more stable, with a sense of ease about having enough money and other resources to live life peacefully with what you need and a healthy level of financial knowledge. And at the abundance point, you’re attracting amazing things into your life as you’re standing on a strong financial foundation.

In order to powerfully attract abundance, however, most people first get to focus on shifting from scarcity to sufficiency. I’ve found that creating abundance is much easier when you can stand on a strong financial foundation that demonstrates your ability to steward your money well. When you come from this place of power, the Universe recognizes that you can be trusted with money and resources, and the abundance (financial and otherwise) begins to show up.

Unfortunately, for the majority of people (70%) who live paycheck-to-paycheck, they end up more toward the scarcity point of the continuum as they are often worried about getting by on a day-to-day basis. So what can you do if you’re one of the many people who want to make a conscious energetic shift out of scarcity and toward sufficiency so that at some point in the near future you can powerfully invite abundance into your life?

The answer: focus on your financial health. Understand what financial health means to you and who the professionals are that can support you in understanding financial health. Begin to learn about money management and best practices when it comes to your finances, and complete a self-assessment of your own financial health.

As I’ve shared before in other articles, “The Financial Health Spectrum™” (which includes the 3 phases of Build, Protect, and Grow your financial assets) reflects different levels of financial health and is a good place for you to start assessing where you are and what the next best steps are for you to improve your financial health. You can use this spectrum to identify which financial expert can help you with your goals and to learn the next set of financial skills that will best support you.

Improving along the spectrum is a longer-term process since strengthening your financial foundation and building financial independence is often a multi-step journey that takes place over time and with attention to progress (and not perfection). It is also important to note that it is possible to be in more than one phase at the same time (i.e. saving for retirement (Grow) while looking to more proactively manage your monthly cash flow (Build) and put the proper legal paperwork in place (Protect)).

Take some time today to understand where you are in terms of your financial health – and ask yourself, are you ready to do what it takes to shift your financial energy and begin to create the abundant life of your dreams?

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Why Celebrations are Important

By on February 6, 2014 in Financial Celebration

PIC_Feb 6th_ARTICLE_Celebration pic with DanaOK, so you might be thinking to yourself – Beth, we just wrapped up the holiday season full of celebrations, and you want us to celebrate AGAIN?

Yup, I do. Celebrating is a lost art form as far as I’m concerned, and to be quite honest I’ve personally had to train myself to do it more often to acknowledge not only the big things but also the little things too!  Yes, I’m a “celebrator-in-training” just like many of you might be.

As I’ve found over the last few years (and more specifically over the last 6 months if I’m being honest), like attracts like which means success attracts more success and celebration attracts more celebration.  In other words, the more you acknowledge something great, the more the Universe will say “oh, he/she gets excited about that – we like excitement – let’s give him/her more of that!”  (Yes, I’m going a bit spiritual here with some “Law of Attraction”…so bear with me if that’s not usually your “thing,” ok?)  Celebrating raises the positive vibrations surrounding you and encourages more of the same positive results to be delivered to you.

As an example in my own life (since I always find it helpful if someone shows me how to do something new that I’m trying to learn), I’m thrilled that January 2014 was the best month EVER in my business and that I found 6 brand new and amazing clients to work with in the months to come!  I started my celebration this past weekend with some much needed “down time” to relax and really let everything that had happened this month sink in and then I celebrated with friends and family (see the pic of me having a celebratory cocktail with a good colleague last week in the picture!).  I also played hooky earlier this week to sneak off and see a movie by myself during a snowy day when I didn’t feel like working.  And this is just the beginning of my celebrations – I really want to anchor what this last month felt like, because I want more of that type of amazingness (so that’s probably not a word but who cares, I’m excited!)!

As it relates specifically to your finances, sometimes the road to financial freedom and financial independence can feel long.  Truth be told, that road is paved with small steps taken over time to build up your financial skill set and financial health – proactive money management skills and a well thought out financial plan doesn’t just come together overnight!  On your lengthy financial journey, there are likely some things that you can celebrate and acknowledge for yourself, so let me get you started with a few ideas:

  • You opened your latest statements for the first time in a long time (bank, credit card, etc.);
  • You reconciled your checking account;
  • You listed out all of the debt that you owe with corresponding details (interest rate, due date, min. payment);
  • You put together a Net Worth Summary (Assets – Liabilities);
  • You looked at one month’s worth of cash flow (income and expenses) to get a better understanding of how you use your money;
  • You got a raise at work;
  • You started a savings account;
  • You saved up for something in advance and paid for it outright;
  • You paid down (or paid off) a piece of debt;
  • You had a money conversation with someone important to you (spouse, friend, co-worker, etc.);
  • You reached out to a financial professional for help with something (taxes, investments, insurance, etc.).

The ideas above may not feel like much (and clearly there are many more examples that I could include), however I’d like to encourage you to see each step on your journey to financial freedom as something worth celebrating.  And, of course, I believe in celebrating in moderation or within appropriate parameters given your individual circumstances!  Sometimes the best celebrations don’t need to cost much (like the movie I snuck off to see) or they don’t cost anything (like the dream car I’m going to go and test drive this weekend just because I can…it’s free, at least for now!).

And lastly, when you’re wanting to truly acknowledge and anchor successes in your life (in any area, really), I’m also a big fan of having a “success journal.” What is that, you ask?  It’s a chance for you to write down each of the successes (big and small) that you have along the way because sometimes we forget our successes and we need to go back and read them to be reminded of the good that we’ve done!  I keep a success journal by my bedside and each night before I go to sleep I list my top 5 successes of that day (financial and other).

So what have you done recently to improve your financial health that you would like to celebrate?  And if you haven’t done anything lately, is there something small that you can do to get yourself started and in action?

Start small, take action, celebrate and document your success along the way…and then rinse and repeat!

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Financial Infidelity: Are you keeping financial secrets in your relationships?

By on June 26, 2013 in Financial Infidelity

I could sit here and quote statistics all day long about how money is the #1 reason for divorce. I won’t bore you with that, however we all know just how true that is, don’t we?

Money is serious business sometimes. When one person is challenged by money management, that’s one thing. Add two people into the equation with different approaches to managing money and different upbringings and experiences with money, and you’ve got yourself a witch’s brew bubbling over that’s potentially a ripe environment for keeping secrets.

Financial infidelity can show up in many different ways and it can slowly and quietly tear at the fabric of trust in any relationship (husband and wife, parent and child, sibling to sibling, best friend to best friend. etc.), however for today I’m going to focus primarily on how it can impact your relationship with your significant other. It’s a dicey subject, and not a lot of people want to talk about it (and most people certainly don’t want to hear about it). However, it keeps coming up in the course of the conversations I have with my clients and also when I speak with couples about money in relationships. And I feel that if I don’t take responsibility for shining some light on it, it may significantly impact your relationships before you know it. So I’m diving in…head first.

It starts with just a small white lie or “untruth” (my made-up word for when you’re not sharing the whole truth), never intending to hurt anyone. Someone loans you money for an intended purpose, and you use it for something completely different. You buy new clothes or a new gadget and when your significant other asks “is that new?” you say “oh, this old thing?” There’s a separate bank account that you keep and your beloved doesn’t know that you keep it. You can’t seem to get on the same page with your spouse about how to use the money, you’re tired of fighting about it, and so you throw up your hands and simply just do whatever you want to. It may be even be so bad that you unconsciously (or perhaps consciously) give your significant other the “financial middle finger” just to get back at them because they ticked you off somehow and didn’t agree with something you wanted to do financially. OUCH.

I’ve personally heard every single one of these scenarios (and more) with either my private clients or from people with whom I’ve had a “money confessional” moment. It doesn’t have to be this way if you’re committed to having authentic and truthful conversations about money with your loved ones. Trust me, I’m not saying it’s an easy feat to have those types of conversations…I’m simply saying that it’s worth it to have those types of conversations. Honest and open financial conversations can change your relationships with your loved ones forever, and the added bonus is that they strengthen your financial foundation too!

So how do you start to heal your relationship(s) if you sense that financial infidelity is an uninvited house guest? There are 3 steps that I would suggest you start with to begin to weed financial infidelity out of your life:

1)  Be honest with yourself

There’s an old saying that “people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”. Before you start to think about what your significant other might be doing to impact the level of financial authenticity in your relationship, look inward to see what you might be doing that isn’t on the “up and up” and could be considered hurtful if your significant other found out about it. How are you behaving with money that if your spouse/significant other found out about they would be hurt by or upset about? What might you be embarrassed about if someone found out about it? While I’m a huge fan of financial independence and creating your own financial rules (even if you’re in a relationship, you don’t have to always 100% agree with each other on how to handle the money), it’s always best to be up front and honest about your thoughts and approaches when it comes to financial matters. So start with being honest with yourself, and see if you’re contributing in any way to having financial secrets in your relationship.

2) LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN!!!

I can’t stress this one enough (were the capital letters a good indicator of that one for you?). This is the really, really brave step. It’s time to step forward with your loved one, and let them know that you want to have a really honest conversation about money and how you can be doing things better…together. Share what you learned about yourself and your money habits when you were honest with yourself (yes, it’s time for a confessional). Ask them for their opinion on what they think you could be doing better, what they could be doing better, and what you could both be doing better together when it comes to being proactive with your money and designing a financial plan to support your life. (Don’t forget to breathe, OK?) Sometimes this can be scary stuff, but if you ask the challenging questions and then step back and really listen to what your other half has to say you might be surprised at what you hear. Make sure you respectfully give them the space to speak their peace, even if you don’t agree with what they’re saying when they say it. Be inquisitive, ask questions when they say something that you don’t agree with or understand. It’s amazing what can happen when you genuinely sit down with the intention to listen and hear out the person in front of you. Put yourself in the shoes of your loved ones, and do your best to compassionately hear another person’s perspective!

3) Get on the same page

Once you have been honest with yourself, and taken the time to understand the perspective of your loved one, you’re ready to think about getting on the same page with him/her. Let me be clear, this does not always have to mean that you have to compromise about everything – it just means that you have both decided that it’s time to put everything out on the open in terms of your goals and what you want your life to look like going forward. No more secrets. Dream big together. Once you have goals, you can then incorporate them into a financial plan that will support achieving those goals by budgeting and saving money in advance! Being ahead of the “financial 8-ball” allows you to strengthen your financial foundation, and thus the foundation of your relationship.

I never said this would be easy, and I hope that you’re still breathing at this point (if you’re not, please start again….deep breaths in and out, in and out). I know this can be hard to look at, yet I know from having worked with many couples that when you tackle the big elephant in the room and address financial secrets head on that it only serves to strengthen your relationship for the better. The communication grows, the trust grows, and the love grows.

So if there’s any chance that financial infidelity may be impacting your relationship, is it worth it to you to think about beginning to repair the tiny tears of trust that may ultimately lead to a large crack in the foundation of your happiness? Only you can answer that question for yourself.

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How to Get Started Building a Financial Plan

By on April 30, 2013 in Budgeting, Financial Foundation, Financial Independence, Financial Plan, Financial Planning, Money Management

If I’ve heard it once (or some version of the following), I’ve heard it 1,000 times: “I don’t like numbers, they scare me.  I can’t seem to sit down and put together a budget even though I know I really should.”

So let me get this straight – you’re scared (which means you’re not thinking as clearly as you’d like to), you think you’re “supposed to” put together a budget (which is like the universal swear word of money), and you are “shoulding” on yourself that it’s an exercise you have to go through (and be tortured it sounds like to me).

C’mon….how about a little compassion for yourself please?  Is it possible for you to see that maybe it doesn’t have to be torturous and if you just had the right tools and information it would be easier?  I’d like to help you shift your perspective to have building a financial plan be a more joyful experience so that you can have the financial freedom, independence and choice that you’re seeking.

The way I see it, there are 3 steps that are required “pre-work” before you ever start looking at numbers to develop your financial plan.

1)      Retire the word budget from your vocabulary – I would say eliminate it, but since other people still use it frequently and we need to be able to recognize the word (I can only educate so many people at a time!), we’ll “retire” it for now.  Why retire the word budget?  Energetically speaking, budget just feels awful. It feels like you’re choking and like if you have a budget you’ll never be able to buy a cute pair of shoes or the newest technological gadget ever again.  Sounds pretty miserable and life-sucking if you ask me, no wonder no one wants to put together a budget! 

Instead of the word budget, I suggest using the phrase “savings and spending plan.”  As one husband reminded me across the kitchen table during a session with his wife one day, “Beth, it’s the same thing, why get caught up in semantics?”  My response? “Well your wife seems to be much more willing to participate in the conversation when we call it a “savings and spending plan” than when we call it a budget, right?”  The husband smiled and said “excellent point.” Sometimes it really is the small tweaks in life that make the difference!

So stop thinking about budgeting as something that weighs you down, and instead start thinking about a “savings and spending plan” as something that is just a financial illustration of how you want your money to move in the world that will help you get from “here” to “there.”

2)      Get really clear on what you want for your life – Before you plan your money, you need to spend a considerable amount of time thinking about what you want for your life.  Money is nothing but a tool to help you move from your present to your future (from “here” to “there” remember?), and without some sort of path to follow money will just exist without purpose.   Unless you tell money where to go it will go just about anywhere it wants to!

Being financially authentic means that you use your money in a way that aligns with what matters to you in your life.  When you’re financially authentic, a financial plan is nothing more than the full expression of what is important to you and all of a sudden the energy around money becomes much less chaotic, and financial decisions are simplified.  You have a road map for your life and your money and it provides you with clear guidance and direction.

In the end, a solid financial foundation and a good financial plan simply requires that you’re intentional, authentic, and proactive with managing your money.  Get clear and get real about your life, and using your money efficiently and effectively will become much easier, I promise.

3)      Set some specific goals with timelines – Now that you’ve gotten some clarity around what you want for your life, it’s time to set some specific goals so that you can then determine whether those goals will require money to support them.  Not all goals need money, although many goals do need some level of financial support at some point in time.  

When setting goals, I encourage people to think about them in 3 different time-based groups – short-term (1 to 3 years); medium-term (3 to 10 years); and long-term (10+ years).  This is important because depending on the goal, it can impact whether or not it’s a goal that needs to be reflected in the current financial plan or whether it can wait to be included in a few years.  Remind yourself when you’re setting your goals to be realistic – saying that you want a Ferrari in a year isn’t likely to be something that you can achieve (unless you randomly hit the lottery, and the lottery isn’t a financial plan it’s a fluke!).

Once you’ve determined which of the goals need money to support them, consider the short-term goals first and state the goals in a very specific and measurable way.  For example, saying “I want to save more money” isn’t very specific, whereas “I want to save $1,200 in the next year to take a vacation in spring 2014” is very specific.  The more specific goal allows you to measure out that you’d like to save $100/month toward that goal ($1,200 total / 12 months), whereas the more general goal doesn’t give you a solid target.

So before you even start to concern yourself with looking at the numbers, take some time to sink deep into your head and your heart to think about what you really want for your life.  Are you happy as you are?  Do you want to set a really big goal that needs financial support (i.e. like starting your own business)?  Do you want to simplify things and live more peacefully and calmly without as much “stuff” cluttering up your life?

The options are endless, it’s simply up to you to choose and design a financial plan to match your life!

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